Sunday, December 30, 2012

Gravity by Melissa West – I kept comparing it to Insurgent while
reading, thought Insurgent is darker and better written. Some parts of the plot
were laughable and made little sense, but at least the present tense was less
jarring and I got caught by the action. 3/5 stars

Iced by Karen Marie Moning – I picked this one up solely for the cover,
I didn’t even bother to read the book description. I found it quite
entertaining, though I’m still puzzled what’s the targeted age audience. Some
mysteries are left untold, but this is the bane with the series. And I wish the
lead character wasn’t 14, ewww. 3/5 stars

Halting State 2: Rule 34 by Charles Stross – My first encounter with
Mr. Stross’ prose did not go so well. The second person POV took a little to
get used to, but the main problem where the characters and the disjointed plot
that failed to held my interest. I abandoned the book after reading about half
of it. 3/5 stars

Mistborn. The Fallen Empire by Brandon Sanderson – The length of the
book intimidated me a little (I read like three big books this year that took a
lot of my time and in the end I wished they had been much shorter), but it
turned out to be amazingly good. Mr. Sanderson has a new fan! :) 4/5 stars

There was
supposed to be one more anthology published this year, but it was delayed. And
no, the zombie anthology is still not out. That’s all right, it means there’ll
be three anthologies featuring my stories next year, if everything works well.

My own Romanian
story collection was postponed for spring. Still no signed contract, so we’ll
see.

There was one
other project I sent texts for, but no idea what’s the status of that one.

To shake thing
up a bit, I got into self-publishing and I’ve got two titles published already:

What I didn’t
get to do is write a new draft for book 1 in Stolen Wings Prophecy series and
finish book 2, but, well, there’s always next year.

And to brag a
little, I was nominated in the Debut category at ROMCON 2012, won my second
AtelierKult contest, and was awarded second prize at Helion contest. Hmm, does
this make me an award-winning writer? I don’t know about that.

But enough
about writing, let’s talk about reading. It takes less effort, and it’s just as
fun.

87 books read
this year out of which 54 read on e-reader.My Kindle turned out to be a great investment. And I’m getting a little
better at not finishing books I don’t enjoy reading. I put down about 5 with no
intention to get back to them.

Best books read
in 2012:

Among Others –
Jo Walton

Mechanique –
Genevieve Valentine

The Shadow of
the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Leviathan Wakes
– James S. A. Corey

Drowned Cities
– Paolo Bacigalupi

Before They Are
Hanged – Joe Abercrombie

Caliban’s War -
James S. A. Corey

The Last
Argument of the Kings – Joe Abercrombie

Consider
Pheblas – Iain M. Banks

Dark Tower 4:
Wizard and Glass – Stephen King

Wool 1-5 – Hugh
Howey

Ready Player
One – Ernest Cline

Mistborn. The
Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson

Moving on to
music…

Best music
albums of 2012:

Leonard Cohen –
Old Ideas

Garou – Rhythm
and Blues

Matchbox 20 –
North

Muse – The 2nd
Law

Les Miserables
2012 OST

Movies – Err,
I’m drawing a blank here… I’ve seen tons of movies, but nothing memorable comes
to mind. I miss movies with an intelligent dialogue, I haven’t seen one in too
long. One thing is clear, 3D movies are still crap plot-wise. And The Dark
Knight Rises was not as good as expected. Prometheus, Total Recall, John
Carter, Bourne, Skyfall, The Hunger Games were all sort of disappointing too.
But we loved Brave, which shows that we’re all kids at heart. Now I’m overly
excited about Les Miserables and I can’t wait to see it.

There’s no news
to report about work. Things are starting to pick up a little after the last
slow year. No new website, but Absolute Skating is keeping me pretty busy.

Health wasn’t
so great, unfortunately. I began the year with IV’s because of my stomach and
then in the summer I had the worst bronchitis in the last ten years. I needed
shots and three types of antibiotics to get over it. Whoever said that only
geniuses catch cold during summer was terribly mistaken. You have to be an
idiot to move from 35C to 15C and expect things to be just peachy.

The worst part
of it is that it happened just before going away on vacation so I spent the
first half of it still recovering and unable to fully enjoy the trip. But we
spent two lovely weeks in Venice and Florence and, if we ignore my health
condition, it was great.

Update on the
mutant cacti: four of them are still alive, though only one kept the colored
top on. Once we moved them on the windowsill to enjoy the sun, the red top one
let its top die, while the purple top one spent the entire summer blooming like
crazy. Go figure!

I’m still proud
of my new bookshelves, even if they’re fully loaded with books and threatening
to fall off the wall. I’m slowly plotting to have another set built next to
them, but maybe next summer.

We were running
a little late with the Christmas preparations, still in the end everything was
fine and we’ve been having guests ever since. Fun. We’re also having lots of
snow, which is a nice change even if it was really cold for a while.

I have some
news for you. We’re moving! Greg was offered a position as first ecologist
administrator in the Ohm system. Yes, I know it’s two galaxies away, but with
the recently discovered faster-than-light traveling technology you can visit us
any time you want, so don’t worry about it.

Why are we
moving into a system with zero population, no entertainment and basically nothing
of interest outside the personnel’s base? Because once all the FTL terminals
are installed, Greg will arrive home from work 2.5 hours earlier than usual. The
regular delivery service can only move our orders up one hour, which is not
enough time for me to take care of everything before he arrives home, and we
won’t be able to afford extra FTL travel for a while. Not mentioning the fact
that Greg will see it in our joint account transfer records. And then, he’ll
figure out I cannot cook. I will not lose my marriage over this FTL business.

So we’re
moving. The pay is smaller and there might not be much for me to do there, but
the beauty of it is that Ohm has been declared a natural reservation and no FTL
travels are allowed in the area. We’ll be safe there. Please, be happy for me,
Mom. Greg means the world to me, and I will do anything for him, even subject
myself to a life full of boredom. Hey, maybe I’ll learn to cook!

Until then,
you can still send in the casseroles as usual, just remember to add a type two
preservation additive after we leave. It’s
especially made for long distance travel and it will keep the food good for
years. And you won’t have to cook every day anymore. I did some research and I
can easily blame the foreign flavor on the local flora. See, I have it all
figured out! Greg will believe me since he can’t cook either. He loves your
lasagna so don’t forget to make at least one portion per week. Thanks!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

A mandatory part of the marketing strategy is to have a solid presence
online and promote your book through your social media. If you’re not
networking a lot then you apparently don’t exist.

Website – If you want people to find your books all in one place, you
need a website. On mine, I have a biography, description of books in which you
can find my stories, a list of stories available online in various magazines,
links to reviews, articles and interviews related to my writing, and ways to
contact me. I’m changing the layout for every new release and so far it’s a
nice hobby to have. I didn’t bother with a domain name and paid hosting, and I
won’t until writing really starts to pay off.

Blog – I’ve had one since 2006. Now that I’m a public figure as a
writer, I stopped posting silliness on it and focus mostly on promoting my work.
Don’t worry, sometimes silliness still slips through. I know many self-published
writers do much more, like guest posting and interviewing and spotlighting each
other’s books, but I don’t have the time and energy for that. Aside from
writing related stuff, I do a monthly post about my latest read books (I don’t
reviews anymore), I might mention some music albums I liked or movies I’m
excited about, travels and of course figure skating. I use Blogspot for
blogging, but I also have a Wordpress account just in case. And if I dig deep
enough, I think I still have a Lifejournal account, though I haven’t used it in
ages.

Facebook – People spend a lot of time on Facebook so it’s good to have
a Facebook fan page too in order to keep in touch with them. There are various
lists with people willing to reciprocate Likes. The problem with this practice
is that not all of them actually do it, and I find it very unlikely for other
aspiring writers to buy your books if they’re the only ones who liked your
page. Big numbers look good, though, and can fool readers. Unfortunately,
Facebook started recently to ask for money to show your post in the
subscribers’ feeds so I don’t see it going anywhere. It was good while it
lasted, but I’m not going to pay for that! Another thing, if I haven’t heard of
you outside Facebook, don’t bother sending me a friendship request. I’m trying
to keep my Facebook profile private. Oh, and did I say I don’t like Facebook? I
really don’t care to read about your frustrations, or what you ate for lunch,
or you washing your floor and doing the laundry.

Twitter – I started with 200 peoples I followed that I was really
interested in. I used to get all my entertainment news from Twitter. Once I
started to follow back, the follower number blew up. Now I follow over 2,000
people with about just as many followers and my timeline is a mess. I know I
should use lists, but I really don’t have time sort 2,000+ usernames. Twitter
used to be fun. Now if I go check my emails, when I return five minutes later
there are like 400 new tweets and I get discouraged just by seeing the number.
Sometimes, some useful tweet catches my attention, but it doesn’t happen often.
Feel free to tweet me, thought, I’ll be happy to tweet back.

Tumblr – It’s something in between a blog platform, Twitter and
Pinterest. It’s mostly useful if you want to reblog other people’s posts, and
there’s a lot of silliness on it. I have an account, but I’m not using it.

Google+ - It looks like a combination of Facebook, Twitter, and some
other socializing platforms with a few extra features. Just like Facebook, I
mainly use it to advertise my blog posts.

Pinterest – I spent about a week on Pintrest this spring, looking at
pretty pictures. Then I realized I was wasting a lot of time that I could have
used more productively. You can’t spend your life just seeing and feeling, you
need to ‘think’ too. I didn’t close my account, but I stopped visiting it.
Also, there’s that copyright issue that keeps nagging me, so now I only use it
to advertize my book covers.

Linkedin – I guess it’s useful for people to get connected through it
for business related matters, but for me at this point it would be just another
account I would have to deal with, and I already have too many so I skipped
this one. (Update: I received an invitation I couldn't refuse so now I'm on LinkedIn too.)

Klout – Don’t get me started on Klout! My goal in life is not to
achieve online world domination, and I don’t care for my influence to be
evaluated by some computer algorithms.

Book sites you might want to have a profile on:

Amazon – Make sure all your books appear on your author page,
especially if your stories are included in story collections and anthologies.

Goodreads – Make sure all your books are listed and they’re also
included in various lists.

LibraryThing – Same as above.

Shelfari – Personally, I like the interface better than Goodreads and
LibraryThing, but due to the smaller number of features it seems to be less
popular.

Bottom of line, I’m mostly active on my blog, with updates on Facebook
and chatter on Twitter.

This concludes my series of self-publishing blog posts this year. Let’s
hope I’ll learn some more about it before next Christmas. Until then, check out “Blue Moon
Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords),
discounted from $2.99 to $0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you
think.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Covers sell. I still get tricked into buying books by good looking covers,
and I should know better. Good book descriptions sell. Readers’ testimonials
sell. Beyond that, marketing comes with a price, and like I said in a previous
post I am not willing to pay it right now. So don’t offer me tons of reviews if
I pay a certain sum or a radio interview that comes with a mandatory donation
clause attached. It won’t happen.

How else can you get the word out about your books then? Some of the
practices followed by the indie writers include:

- spotlight posts on various book blogs – done that, and it works well since
it requires the least amount of effort from both sides. It’s usually better if
they’re combined with an excerpt, interview or giveaway.

- accept to be interviewed on similar sites – done that too, and some were
quite fun, except for the dreaded question ‘name your favorite writers’. How
could I possibly list them all? They’re so many!

- write guest posts on blogs – I don’t think I’m experienced enough to give
lessons to other writers so I don’t do ‘advice’ posts. Character interviews
seem a little pointless to me if the book just came out and people didn’t get a
chance to read it yet. That’s better fit as a bonus for the book later during
the marketing stage. There are other subjects to talk about if you really want
to, but I didn’t look into it much.

- some indie writers do all of the above on their own blogs – I guess it’s
good for their popularity, but frankly I’d rather invest all that time and
energy into writing, so again no. Besides, I’m a little wary when it comes to
cross promoting if I haven’t read the book, no offence.

- exchange reviews with other writers – No. Well, mostly because there are
tons of books out there that I really want to read and must find time to do it,
but also because it doesn’t feel right somehow. So if you’re a reader and want
to review my books, I’ll give them to you with the risk of a bad review,
but if you’re a writer and offer to review my book in exchange of me reviewing
yours, I’ll pass. Amazon doesn’t like writers reviewing other writers anyway
(which is stupid if you ask me, because I, as a private person, should be
allowed to review whatever I want wherever the hell I want it in the way I see
it most appropriately fit).

- giveaways and promotional prices – we talked about them in the previous
posts.

- blog tours – I haven’t tried it yet, I get dizzy just from thinking about
all the logistics needed to organize one. Maybe for The Impaler series…

- book trailers – I really really don’t see the point of those. I never had
the patience to watch one from the beginning to end, and I honestly think they
take more money to make than the revenue they bring.

I’m sure there are many other marketing strategies that work, more or less,
but like I keep saying I’m lazy and I’d rather write. If you know something I
missed, feel free to comment below.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about social media. Until then, check out “Blue Moon
Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords),
discounted from $2.99 to $0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you
think.

Friday, December 21, 2012

For people to buy your book, they first need to hear about it, and just
being aware of its existence is not enough. They need to see testimonials that
the book is worth the money spent to buy it. Hence, you need reviews.

In the beginning, to get reviews you have to actively ask for them.
Don’t count on family and friends to do it, few of them will find the time to read
and review, and possibly even fewer will be interested in your genre. The alternative
is to find book bloggers and send them free copies in exchange of honest
reviews.

After spending a lot of time on the internet, looking for blogs
specialized in my genre (there’s a lot of fantasy and YA but not so much sci
fi), here are my numbers (I did this for Human Instincts, not for Blue Moon
Café Series):

- 170 queries sent

- 22 said no from the start

- 10 of them offered interview/giveaway/spotlight post instead

- 35 agreed to review the book

- 13 published their review already.

Keep in mind that most book bloggers worth contacting are booked for
several months ahead and have miles long piles of books waiting to be read.

Giveaways

Another way to get your book to people is through giveaways.On blogs works, but that doesn’t guarantee
you a review. It’s better to do it on review sites like LibraryThing and
Goodreads. It still doesn’t guarantee you a review, but the chances are higher
to get at least some stars since people frequenting this type of sites are more
used with the practice.

LibraryThing has a special program for ebook giveaways. I’ve offered 25
copies. 33 were requested and 2 reviews showed up already.

Goodreads only does it for physical book, but there are several groups
that offer the same service, connecting authors with readers.

Bad reviews

Yes, it’s unavoidable. Bad reviews happen. My method to treat them is
to check first what other reviews the reviewer has written. If he or she gave
one star to Frank Herbert’s Dune, then they are definitely not my target
audience and I have no reason to feel bad about it.

Tomorrow, we’ll focus on marketing strategies. Until then, check out “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords), discounted from $2.99 to
$0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you think.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

In theory, you should pay quite a bit of money for editing, cover
design, formatting, promotion and web presence, to list only a few of the time
consuming, money eating activities associated with the writing process.

I managed to cut the costs so far, though, in the future it might not
work so well anymore. Writing is a hobby for me, and just like with the fan
sites I’m running for free, I’m dedicating my time, experience and skills, but
I refuse to put any money in it. Like I said, this conception might change in
the future, but so far it worked for me.

This is how I solved the money problem:

- editing – I have several native English speakers editing my stories
for free. They’re not professional editors (oops!), but they’re also not my
close friends. In fact, I never met them face to face, and this is a great
help, because they’re not afraid to tell me when I need to change something or
when my grammar sucks. You have to find people who get your writing style and
preferably like it, too, so it’s a bit of trial and error at first until you
find the right people, but it’s doable.

- cover design – as mentioned in a previous post, I designed the covers
for my ebooks so far. I know a bit of Photoshop, but no way near as much as I’d
like to. Unless I come up with a brilliant idea, for the fantasy trilogy and
the sci fi saga I might need to hire a professional designer. We’ll see.

- formatting – since I only do ebooks and no print editions, following
the already existing guide put out by each platform turned out to be easy
enough to do. Smashwords is a little trickier, but formatting for Amazon is easy,
especially if you know HTML. Besides, I’m used to keep my doc files pretty clean
so I had no problem with that.

- promotion – I decided from the start not to pay for ads, reviews, or
to have the books featured on various websites. I spent a lot of time
contacting bloggers and offering free copies for reviews, but this is all I did.

- online presence – I’m a web designer so building a website was a part
of the process that I actually enjoyed doing. I already had a blog, twitter
account, facebook account, etc. and those are all free so far.

Keeping in mind that I invested no actual money in these ebooks, when
time came to set the prices a lot consideration was done. I don’t plan on
getting rich from this, but I’m not going to give away my writing for free on
regular bases. After much study on the debate regarding the ebook prices, I
decided on the following:

- $2.99 for novellas and short story collections (around 30,000
words/100 pages each)

- $4.99 for novels (over 60,000 words), $5.99-$6.99 if the novels are
really long (not there yet)

- short stories as bonus when part of a series will be free (hint hint
:))

- from time to time, I’ll do $0.99 promotions for a short period of
times, and on special occasions, like my birthday for example, I’ll make one
title free.

- also, free review copies are always available as long as you’re willing
to write a review on the big online stores’ websites, book review websites, or
your own blog.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk more about reviews. Until then, check out “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords), discounted from $2.99 to
$0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you think.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

When you mention self-publishing, everyone thinks about Amazon because
that’s where the big bucks are made, and Kindle is oh so popular. We all heard
of those spectacular cases of self-published writers who sold millions of
copies at $0.99 and made a fortune that way. We secretly hope to become one of
them. Well, it’s probably not going to happen, but Amazon cannot be ignored,
even if their algorithms changed, and indie writers are not that advantaged
anymore.

A few considerations regarding Amazon:

- formatting – it’s easy if you’re used to keep clean doc files, and
even easier if you know HTML.

- uploading – easy again; I like the option to stop in the middle of
the two steps process and continue from the same point later on and the
possibility to check how the ebook looks like before publishing it.

- time to wait before the ebook becomes available online – Human
Instincts took one day. Blue Moon Café Series took five days (and counting!),
but I uploaded it before the weekend so I’ll give them the benefit of a doubt.
Waiting is annoying, though.

- DRM – No. If my readers want to store my ebooks on 20 different
devices, they can just as well do so as long as they read them. Those who prefer to pirate the ebooks wouldn’t have paid
for them anyway, and there’ll always be pirate copies on the internet. You
can’t help it.

- KDP Select – No. Go exclusively with Amazon for three months for one
title or another? No, thank you. I will never put all my eggs in one basket and
force my readers to depend on one format. Besides, those rumors about someone
having their Kindle wiped clean by Amazon? No, no. Do back up your files,
people. Once you paid for something, it’s yours forever.

- tech support – quite prompt the one time I contacted them.

- reports – sale reports are made available monthly with the number of
copies sold and the money gained. I would prefer to have the number of sales
listed per day for my own analysis, but in the long run it doesn’t really
matter. Silly story, when I published Human Instincts, I gave all my family and
friends a copy so they wouldn’t feel pressured to buy it. Then, after some
reviews showed up, I had three sales one right after the other and I was like “Who bought it?!”

An alternative to Amazon is Smashwords:

- formatting – their metagrinder is pickier, and even if you follow
their formatting guide sometimes it still finds errors, and you have to use the
nuclear method and redo all formatting from scratch like it happened with Blue
Moon Café Series.

- uploading – easy if you don’t get error messages from the
metagrinder. You can’t check the ebook before becoming available on their site,
though, and that’s a bit of an inconvenience.

- time to wait before the ebook becomes available online – the ebooks
become available in a couple of minutes, right after the conversion is done.

- you can select the format for the ebooks to be available in – I chose
all, even if readers can use Calibre to convert the ebooks to their preferred
format.

- premium catalog – if your ebook’s quality qualifies for it (mine both
did), Smashwords ships it to other retailers like Barnes and Noble, Kobo,
iTunes and a few others, including Amazon, without you having to move a finger,
which is really neat. You can get approved in a couple of days, while shipping
can take longer, up to a few weeks.

- coupons – discount coupons are great for promotion and sending free
copies for review, especially since Smashwords stores several formats of each
ebook so you don’t have to ask everyone what format they prefer.

- reports – it’s possible to download Excel sheets with all your sales,
including the coupon ones, with the exact dates.

There are other options out there, but I settled for these two, which
seem to cover most of the market.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about prices and costs. Until then, check out “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords), discounted from $2.99 to
$0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you think.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

First, you need to have a story. Typed. From the beginning to end.
Finished. There’s no way around it. If you want to be a writer, you need a
story. A good one, preferably several. I never lack ideas, but deciding which
one to write first turns out to be a little problematic at times.

I usually write 1,000 words per day, except for the weekends, when the
entire family gathers at home and it’s harder to focus. I prefer to catch up
with my reading during weekends instead. It means I can write a 30,000 words
novella in a month. Three months for a 90,000 words novel, but novels are
trickier because they’re harder to plot right. Of course, we’re talking about
the first draft here. Getting to the final draft and having the manuscript
edited too can take twice as long.

Once draft 3 or 4 is done, it’s time to send the text to the editors.
Since English isn’t my first language, I’m a bit paranoid when it comes to
grammar and phrase structure, so I have all the texts go through several hands
before publishing them. Waiting for everyone to edit and return their parts,
and going over the comments and changes is a tedious job, and by the time
everyone is done with their bit I’m so sick of the story that I never want to
see it again. But hey, the good news is that the language in my stories is much
better than anything you’ll find on this blog!

The last part of the creative process requires a different kind of
artistic ability since it deals with the cover art. For “Human Instincts” I
knew from the start that I wanted something with a light bulb. It reflects the
idea behind the plot so when I found that photo I instantly fell for it. The
colors were just right, and the entire atmosphere suggested a gritty life,
perfect for my story.

It was a little more difficult to come up with a cover for “Blue MoonCafé Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”. Fantasy book covers tend to have
a certain look and feel, and although I tried various covers featuring a moon,
a wolf/dog and a crow, none of them seemed to fit the mood in these stories.
There’s no epic romance in them, it’s about bits and pieces of mundane (for
them!) life, with shapeshifters struggling to survive in a modern city. The
cartoonish look felt much more appropriate to me, and once I had that, I also
had a book trailer, even if I’m not a big fan of those.

For the Impaler series (I’m still looking for a title for the entire
series so bare with me) I have some awesome covers already made. I can’t wait
to show them to the world, but, well, each in their right time.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about distribution platforms. Until then, check out “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords), discounted from $2.99
to $0.99 during the holidays, and let me know what you think.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Because, simply put, it allows me to write what I want, when I want it,
and how I want it. There’s no pressure except for my own deadlines and the readers
asking for more. And I wanted to try something new.

Why in English?

Some people consider me an established writer because I have published
short stories in several Romanian anthologies and on-line magazines, and I
happened to win some awards too. I, on the other hand, think people can consider
themselves writers after they published at least two books, novels or short
story collections or whatever, but let’s not dwell on that.

English allows me to reach a larger audience, without losing many
readers. I mainly write science fiction and fantasy, and given the way the book
industry is moving in Romania, you’re forced to learn English if you want to
keep up with what’s published abroad whether you like it or not. So my current
readers, especially the younger generation, already know English well enough to
read my stories, and it’s always good to get new readers.

How I started?

In the spring of 2012, I already had a book ready, but you know how
they say that the first novel is never good enough for publishing. So instead
of doing that, my plan was to start small and build a backlog first and an
audience, before moving on to bigger things.

Last June, I published “Human Instincts”, an apocalyptic novella,
followed in December by the short story collection “Blue Moon Café Series:Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”. Next in line is “The Impaler’s Revenge”, a
vampire novella, which turned into a series (I have no idea how that happened!),
and should be ready sometime in the spring. After that, I’ll be working on a
fantasy trilogy, “Stolen Wings Prophecy”, and a sci fi saga, “The Flying Chair
Chronicles”.

To celebrate the new release, this week I’ll write a series of
blog posts and share with you what I learned during the first six months of
self-publishing.

Until then, check out “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”(Amazon, Smashwords), discounted from $2.99 to $0.99 during the holidays, and let me know
what you think.

Friday, December 14, 2012

It's been exactly six months since I self-published my apocalyptic novella "Human Instincts", and now it's time to make another ebook available for my readers:

Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks

This story
collection started with a challenge in the spring-summer of 2010. The theme of
the new contest launched by AtelierKult, a writing workshop I’ve been a member
of for the past few years, was based on werecreatures. Since I'm not a big fan
of shapeshifters, my knowledge in this field was limited when I began writing,
which allowed me to develop a world based on my own set of rules.

I finished up with
three full stories and two half-written ones, all set in the same universe. I
didn’t submit any for the contest, mainly because I had written them in English
from the start, but also because they didn’t feel right at the time.

Now they do.

Once I decided to
turn them into a story collection, I finished the other two stories in the fall
and added two shorts as introduction and epilogue. And there you have it, the
collection was complete.

Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks is now available through Amazon andSmashwords, and soon through other online stores too, at the discounted price of $0.99. After the holidays, the price will go up to $2.99. As further incentive, the first 25 readers who write a honest review about it will be entitled to a free copy of "The Impaler's Revenge" when it comes out. All you have to do is ask.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

"The were-eagles and our kind have been at war since the beginning of time. Well, it’s more like fifty years since we’d decided to move into town, but it feels like an eternity already. And they’re not were-eagles, just like we’re not werewolves. They’re more like crows, and we look more like dogs. Mutts, they call us.

Times are changing and we do what we can to adapt in order to fit in. When you’re like us, social acceptance really is a problem. But we still have claws and fangs, and they have beaks and talons that can rip their enemy to shreds in seconds. Maybe it’s in our genes. Whenever we meet, it’s a miracle it doesn’t end in a bloodbath. It’s a good thing we rarely die, or there would be dead mutts all over the streets. Dead crows too. We’re a good match."

In a city where two shifter clans reside, the Mayor is struggling to maintain peace while keeping the population safe. Through a series of short stories, we discover what happens when intruders appear, humans get turned, the Mayor's reputation is at stake, an invasion is planned, and not everything is what it seems.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I was browsing Elefant.ro, looking for some books, when I ran into this.

Yep, "Venus - Povestiri erotice science fiction" is finally available as an ebook. The date says November 2012 so it's quite recent.

To celebrate this, I'm going to write a few words about my story "Adevarul din privire" (The Truth in their Sights) that is included in Venus.

When the call for submissions was made on the SRSFF website, the theme of the new SF and F anthology was supposed to be 'love'. I wrinkled my nose a little at the sight of the announcement, because as my readers know it already I am not really a romance writer. Still, it sounded better than the zombie themed anthology Millennium Books was planning (more on this later, when the zombie anthology gets published, hehe! :)) so I thought I might give it a try.

I don't remember what I was writing at the time, something in English, but I know I stopped to create a new document and write the first paragraph of the story. Now I had a premise, I knew what the story was going to be about, and for a long time, a month or two, that's all I had. I finished whatever I was writing, probably started something new, and later on, when I reckoned it was time to focus on the story before I would be really running out of time, I went back to it.

Other stories I plotted in advance, but with this one I didn't have a particular plan in mind. I just wrote and let the story lead me where it wanted to. It's the way I actually prefer to do things, but not the best approach if you write with a certain goal in mind, like being published in Venus, which required a certain theme to be respected. I did my best to get into a more romantic mood, I listened to French musicals ("Notre Dame de Paris", "Romeo et Juliette" both versions, "Autent en emporte le vent" etc.) on repeat, driving the ones around me crazy with my singing along (I wasn't gifted with such a great voice, I'm afraid), but nothing worked. The story refused to get any mushier and stayed true to its core.

The result was that I ended up with a policier on my hands and not for lack of trying. Sure, there is love in it, the characters' actions are driven by it, but love doesn't take center stage. It's always in the background, simmering, boiling, and unwilling to let go. But don't expect any X-rated scenes like the title of the book might lead you to believe, because they're not in there. It wasn't the right place for them.

In the end, I was happy with my story, in fact it's one of my favorite, but it wasn't what I had set myself to write in the first place. The last day before the deadline, I took a chance and submitted it. Until I received a word from the editor, I was convinced it was going to be rejected because it didn't fit the theme. Luckily, the editor disagreed and she was right. "Adevarul din privire" received high praises in all the reviews done so far.

A funny thing about this story: one of the characters is modeled after a former colleague of mine. We lost touch over the years, and when he contacted me shortly after Venus was published, my first thought was "Oh, shit, I hope he didn't read it!" :))